Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
There are a few spots where you should not continuation-bet.
There are a few spots where you should not continuation-bet. In general, when you have a weak made hand, such as top pair with a bad kicker, a strong underpair or middle pair, you should tend to check more than bet because if you bet and get raised, you will be in a tough spot. Suppose you raise A-3 from middle position and your opponent calls in the big blind. The flop comes A-K-8.
Your opponent checks to you.
Your opponent checks to you. In this spot, you are either way ahead or way behind. If you bet and get raised, you will usually face a large turn bet and be forced to put a lot of money in the pot or fold a hand that could be best. Also, your opponent could check-call with a better ace, allowing you to value-bet with the worst hand. All in all, not much good that can come in this spot. So, just check behind. If your opponent bets the turn, you can call, and also call a river bet, as your hand is underrepresented and he may be betting a king for value. There will be more on this later in the chapter on Pot Control.